By the time Lincoln was back on the train returning to
Washington, he was down with a high fever from Small Pox. I’m thinking the
illness did not grip the president the second he stepped on the train. Already
distraught over Mary falling off a horse-carriage, his son Tad taken grievously
ill, and the old, tired war, the president was almost certainly already
stricken when he delivered the address and perhaps even when he wrote it the
day and evening before. I suspect that the Gettysburg Address would not have
been only 272 words long had Lincoln been well.
The full essay is at "The Gettysburg Address."
The full essay is at "The Gettysburg Address."
